Fitbit Charge HR?

As luck would have it, I just typed out a PM to someone today about mine. Here goes.

I have a Fitbit Charge HR. I had been wanting an activity tracker since I started on MFP, but couldn't really justify the money. Then once I had enough saved, I looked around and the one I wanted was the Fitbit Force, but the same week that I was going to buy one they started getting recalled because people were having skin reactions. So I decided that when whatever was replacing that came out, I'd spring. Come February, the Charge HR was released, and I've had mine for about 7 weeks.

The three things I wanted out of an activity tracker was steps and stairs counted, sleep tracked, and heartrate tracked. Heartrate was especially important to me because you can get a much more accurate count of calories burned if the tracker knows your heart rate. It can even know you are burning more calories while lifting weights without you having log to log each rep, because as you lift your hr goes up and that translats into increased calorie burn.

The first month I had it, my skin got dry and slightly red, but I loosened it by one notch and now it's fine. I wear it 24/7 except for when I'm swimming or in the shower, or for one hour every 5 days to charge. It's ok to be get splashed, like I don't have to worry when washing my hands, but it can't be immersed.

The dashboard is really cool, it tracks a lot of stuff in a single page, and you can click anything for more detail. You can check out my fitbit profile at //www.fitbit.com/user/36XF5H if you want.

I also like that it syncs food with MFP, so I don't have to log food in two places. It tracks calories in calories out like MFP, and one of the things you can track is total calories burned for the day up to that point.

As far as the bad stuff goes, I can think of two things. First, figuring out how to get all the syncs right between MFP, Fitbit and phone-based workout tracked Endomondo was a bear, it took me about a week of trying different things every day to get it just how I like it. Second, since I got it I found out there is another company's tracker that can track heartrate while in the water, and fitbit doesn't have a model that can, so I'm kinda wishing that it could. When I got it my foot wasn't hurt so walking was my main calorie burn, but now that I'm swimming I have to rely on estimates for calorie burn. Once I get back to walking (this weekend if everything pans out), I'm not going to swim much anymore, so it won't be as big a problem.


Jon

Here is a link for the Fitbit Community forum for the Fitbit Charge HR: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Charge-HR/bd-p/chargeHR
It may help answer your questions and learn of successes and failures with the tracker.